Now Available From Grove Atlantic.

“A book that reads like music, both battle hymn and love song for our world…”

—Violet Kupersmith, author of Build Your House Around My Body

Preorder now, wherever books are sold!

Praise for I Cheerfully Refuse

~A Most Anticipated Book of 2024 from Literary Hub~

  • A heart-racing ballad of escape, shot-through with villainy and dignity, humor and music. Like Mark Twain, Enger gives us a full accounting of the human soul, scene by scene, wave by wave.

    —Josh Ritter, Singer and Author of The Great Glorious Goddamn Of It All

  • The transcendent latest from Enger (Peace Like a River) is at once a dystopian love story, a nautical adventure, and a meditation on loss, kindness, and natural beauty . . . This captivating narrative brims with hope.

    Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  • Magnificent . . . Comet-bright and eloquent, I Cheerfully Refuse is a perfect novel that treats dystopian circumstances as transient so long as literacy remains.

    Foreword Reviews (starred review)

  • There’s both a playfulness and a seriousness of purpose to the latest from the Minnesota novelist, a spirit of whimsy that keeps hope flickering even in times of darkest despair.

    Kirkus Reviews

  • A book that reads like music, both battle hymn and love song for our world. A true epic—heartbreaking, terrifyingly prophetic, but above all, radically hopeful.

    —Violet Kupersmith, author of Build Your House Around My Body

  • A rare, remarkable book to be kept and reread—for its beauty of language, it gentle wisdom and its steady, unflagging hope.

    —Minneapolis Star Tribune

— an essay —

WHY I CARRY A KITE WITH ME EVERYWHERE

WHEN YOU NEED A BIT OF LIFT IN BAD TIMES

~ Lithub ~


other books by leif enger

Virgil wander

Movie house owner Virgil Wander is “cruising along at medium altitude” when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar. Awakening in this new life, Virgil pieces together his personal history and the lore of his broken town.

so brave, young, and handsome

In 1915 Minnesota, Monte Becket—“a man fading, a disappointer of persons”—has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives a simple life with his loving wife and whipsmart son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself.

peace like a river

The quiet Midwestern life of eleven-year-old Reuben Land is upended when his older brother Davy kills two marauders who have come to harm the family. The morning of his sentencing, Davy–a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others–escapes from his cell, and the Land family sets out in search of him.